RO Social Democrat leader says revised Offshore Law ready "by end of next week"

A revised version of the amendments to the legislation on the offshore and onshore oil and gas exploitations will be agreed upon among the members of the ruling coalition by the end of next week, the leader of the Romanian Social Democratic Party (PSD) Marcel Ciolacu said, Economica.net reported.

The amendments, so far referred to as the revised Offshore Law, will include a broader revision of the oil and gas regulations touching the onshore perimeters as well, Ciolacu stressed.

This is why the debates among the members of the coalition took longer than expected, he explained.

Asked if "it is possible for Romania to buy gas at a preferential price" (admittedly a rather ambiguous question), Ciolacu said that "[as a rule] there are no preferential prices in a free market."

But this [the new regulations shaping the free market] will make Romania independent, he answered, touching on a delicate issue: that of the gas trade regulations included in the law.

Making the gas available on a single European market (in line with the Third Energy Package) should, in principle, diminish the country's self-sufficiency compared to more restrictive regulations like those included in the existing legislation (such as the mandatory sale of local gas on local centralised commodity exchanges).

The key elements of the new offshore exploitation regulations remain not known since they have not been publicly debated.

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